Mediapart in court: the right to inform

Hence the importance of independent media Médiapart publishes all the recordings on its site, but you have to be a subscriber to have access to them. Which is a way to support them, which is the least you can do given the tremendous investigative work they do.

June 24, 2010 By Anoine Perraud and Erich Inciyan

Mediapart was therefore assigned before the Paris court this Thursday morning June 24. Separately, Liliane Bettencourt and Patrice de Maistre, her wealth manager, demanded the immediate removal from our site of the written or audio transcriptions of the clandestine recordings made at Mrs.^me Bettencourt. The two complainants also targeted the weekly The Point, which had published excerpts from these pirated recordings.

In a rather tense atmosphere, the lawyers of the richest woman in France and her wealth manager favored "invasion of privacy" that resulted from the release of these pirate recordings. On behalf of Liliane Bettencourt, Ms.^e Georges Kiejman went very far in this direction, speaking of "Denouncement" and referring to "blackest years" from France.

Defenders of journalists have favored "disclosure to the public of information relating to democratic debate". For Mediapart, Mr.^e Jean-Pierre Mignard recalled that, without the publication of this information, the accounts in Switzerland of the heiress of L'Oréal, the interventions in his favor of the Elysée in the course of justice, or the possible conflicts of interests for which the Woerths were accused, would probably never have been revealed.

If the 17^e chamber of the Paris Criminal Court was seized "emergency", started M.^e Pascal Wilhelm at the start of the hearing, it is because of the "Danger" that the publication of this information entails. It's not about "no muzzling the press", but to prevent it from "Concealing information that relates to private life", pleaded the lawyer of Patrice de Maistre. While specifying that his summary summons was intended to obtain, "within four hours" following the judgment of the court, the withdrawal from Mediapart of “all relevant recordings – transcription and audio versions” – and to prohibit any new publication on the same subject.

“If you do not ban this process which consists of being complicit in the illicit recordings of our private life and their dissemination, it will become the national sport”, considered M^eWilhelm, to the address of this 17^e room in charge of press affairs. With a strong argument, according to which we cannot let "anybody" place tape recorders “under dining tables” ou "under desks" before “put the recordings on the Internet. It's easy". And a reference to "Mr. Plenel, when he was caught up in the Elysée telephone tapping affair”, by which the lawyer pushes the comparison: "That the press is complicit in what it itself denounced in the famous affair of the wiretapping of the Elysée, it is unacceptable"...

On this momentum, M.^e Georges Kiejman pushed the line. “I am not afraid of being grandiloquent”, certainly warned the lawyer, who appears in the recordings. Like his colleague, M.^eKiejman compared the case of the "state wiretaps" to "some journalists", under the presidency of François Mitterrand, and this dossier of"permanent private spying by an employee" targeting his client, heiress of L'Oréal, and intervening “in the privacy of his private life”.

On this attempt at comparative press law and this historical reminder, Mr.^e Jean-Pierre Mignard made his contribution as a former lawyer for the Monde and Edwy Plenel, during the “Elysée wiretapping” trial, and present lawyer for Mediapart. Not without pointing out major differences.

The clandestine tapping of François Mitterrand's "so-called anti-terrorist cell" was a matter "directly from very high-level officials at the Presidency of the Republic" and "have never been intended to be made public". Unlike the pirated recordings of the Bettencourt file which were first handed over to the judicial police (before being published in the press) and which, being the subject of a preliminary investigation by the courts, were intended to be (one day) brought to the attention of the public.

For the rest, M.^e Kiejman confessed, in court, "a real urge to vomit". And denounce “a denunciation in the family domain” by evoking the old dispute between the richest woman in France and her daughter, François Meyers-Bettencourt. Returning to the law, he asked the court to "put an end to a crime": “disseminate recordings recognized as clandestine, claimed as such by press organs”. In his eyes, this "criminal offence" consists "regardless of content" clandestine recordings, which it concerns “private life or public life”.

"Freedom of the press has a good back, in this case", extended the former minister of several socialist governments (early 1990s). Without hesitating to return to historical assessments by quoting “the Occupation» to urge the court to ensure that "tomorrow France will not be subject to denunciation" and does not change "in a country where everyone can denounce everyone, where everyone can spy on everyone". M^e Kiejman, in any case, denied any political ulterior motive: “I am not pleading for the President of the Republic, I am not pleading for Mr. Woerth, whom I nevertheless believe is an honest man, but for an old woman who will soon be 88 years old.”

Faced with these arguments, counsel for the PointM^e Renaud Le Gunehec first opposed the "legitimacy of information", when A.M^me Bettencourt invents today the offense of scoop ". Then "choking strategy" underway in this Bettencourt case where the recordings reveal how “justice and political power can mingle” on a flagged file. reminding "zeal" manifested by the Nanterre public prosecutor's office (in the case opposing M^me Bettencourt to his daughter) and the ongoing relations of the Nanterre prosecutor with the Elysée, the lawyer underlined “the strong suspicion of connection with political power”.

For Mediapart, Mr.^e Emmanuel Tordjman underlined that the information site took care to publish only elements relating "in professional life" or the family "heritage" interested parties. “No element relating to personal, sentimental or health life” of the persons cited was retained in the extracts given from the clandestine recordings.

From the first article on the subject, on June 16 (read our “black box” attached to this article), Edwy Plenel took care to specify that only the passages presenting "a public interest" had been chosen because they concerned "the functioning of the Republic, respect for its common law and the ethics of governmental functions". And M^e Tordjman to recall that had been “excluded anything that related directly or indirectly to the private lives and intimacy of the protagonists of this story”.

His colleague Mignard went further by arguing that "the journalistic work of Mediapart was precisely to eradicate like a weed what could concern the private life, the sentimental life or the health of M^me Liliane Bettencourt». At the same time, it was important to ensure “the right of millions of our fellow citizens to have information” on these matters of major public interest. Because it is not “not a private dispute” closest "developments which concern the functioning of institutions and public probity". By recalling the title of the articles on our site, which mention "the name of the President of the Republic" and that of Minister Eric Woerth (also treasurer of the UMP), the "tax evasion" or checks to political figures.

If proof of this "public interest in the publication of these shreds of information", the sequence of events has amply demonstrated this, according to Mr.^e Mignard. The lawyer cited the resignation of Mr.^me Woerth of the structure managing the assets of M^me Bettencourt, the announcement of the "tax regularization" by the latter of its assets abroad, or even the action promised by the executive power to avoid "conflicts of interest" at the heights of the state. “A great public affair”, decidedly, for the Mediapart lawyer.

But^e Kiejman continued to be indignant, this time daring to make a comparison with the journal of Robert Brasillach (the former editor-in-chief of the anti-Semitic weekly I'm everywhere, sentenced to death and executed in 1945). “If you open the floodgates”, he launched at the presidency of the court about the clandestine recordings of M^me Bettencourt and his entourage, “you will establish a case law that I will not hesitate to denounce as villainous and which will bear your name”.

Was an “extreme emergency procedure” really necessary? questioned M.^e Emmanuel Tordjman. In his view, this procedure "purely and simply aims at press censorship". Such haste could give rise to several means of annulment of the procedure at the key, he argued, including the absence of signature of M^e Kiejman on the subpoena of the two media outlets in court.

We remember that these assignments from hour to hour of M^me Bettencourt and Mr. de Maistre demanded in particular that the courts order Mediapart, subject to a penalty of 10 euros per hour of delay and per extract, the immediate withdrawal of all the transcriptions of the recordings made at the home of Mr.^me Bettencourt. They also demanded that Mediapart be prohibited from making public any other transcriptions in the future. “on any publication, electronic, paper or otherwise”.

First^e chamber of the Paris Criminal Court has given itself a week to examine the whole.

His decision will be made on Thursday 1^er July. "Funny Emergency", commented Edwy Plenel, at the end of the hearing. It is precisely the 1^er July that the trial of the photographer François-Marie Banier, summoned to appear for "abuse of weakness" by Francoise Bettencourt. The daughter of the L'Oréal heiress believes that the artist took advantage of the deterioration of her mother's state of health to extract from her, between 1997 and 2007, nearly a billion euros in various donations. And at the opening of the Nanterre hearing, the famous pirate recordings will be handed over to the court by the counsel of Françoise Bettencourt, Ms.^e Olivier Metzner.

Just before the opening of the hearing at the Palais de Justice in Paris, M^e Jean-Pierre Mignard, one of the lawyers – with M^e Emmanuel Tordjman – from Mediapart, recalled the legal issues in the running (behind him, from left to right, Fabrice Lhomme, Edwy Plenel and Fabrice Arfi):

For his part, Edwy Plenel, CEO of Mediapart, had mentioned the political and civic chapter of such a case: